New Owner Learning Curve, Strange Sound

[Thewespaul]

I like the felpro rubber gaskets, run away from the cork gaskets theyre terrible. If everything is good under the covers I would next look into the lifters.
Ive done this to clean up several dirty engines, and do it occasionally with oil changes to clean up sludge and carbon but I like to drain the oil and fill the engine up with five gallons of clean diesel. Leave it in the pan for 15 or so minutes and drain it. Youll be amazed how sludgy the diesel looks when you drain it, and it really helps clean up long term deposits, run MMO in it afterwards and cut your oil change intervals in half for a few cycles to see if you get an improvement.

 

[Justin B]

So, I had to run into the big city today to pick up some new tires for my Jeep, got four new 40,000 mile warranty Futura 31x10.5x15's for $340 at Pepboy's if anyone is looking for a new set for their other vehicles. I'll be mounting them in the workshop at some point this weekend.

I also went to Harbor Freight while I was out and picked up some goodies for working on the truck and some other projects.

I got the valve covers off, boy am I glad I started with the passenger side, that one puts up a good fight. Everything was pretty clean on that one, other than it looks like the old glow plug controller literally melted and there was rubbery goo all over the valve cover and around the aft glow plug. The driver side was a different story, the cover came off easy enough but then I found soot under the cover around the second cylinder back from the front. (Sorry, don't have my tech books yet so unsure of the cylinder number). I watched a video of a member whose valve stuck, cracked, and broke off in there.. I'm sure you veterans know who I'm referring to (can't recall his user name). Hoping mine isn't that far gone, but with the soot, does that indicate bad valve guides? My options there?

I included a picture of the driver side rockers where the soot is, it's pretty dirty down at the head too. The second picture is the glow pins from the passenger side (haven't pulled driver yet), the one with the gunk around it is the rear one under the controller.. the other three clean ones are Bosch and that gooed one is an Autolite.. guessing it was too difficult to get to and the PO just left it.

I'll get back on it tomorrow, pull the other glow pins, check the tightness of everything, and do a leak down test.. although your thoughts on this are encouraged. If I get a lot of "Pulling the head is the only way to fix it right" then I'll just start prepping the other motor.

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[Justin B]

And to sum it up in video for those that prefer live action..

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[Thewespaul]

From the picture it looks like you’re referring to #4 on the drivers side. The numbers of the cylinders are cast into the intake manifold runners so you should be able to confirm that when you get to look at it next.

With that amount of soot, I’d say bad valve guide and/or cracked exhaust valve. The soot buildup shows combustion is getting into the crankcase, which means that cylinder is not holding the explosions inside the cylinders where they belong... not much you can do for that, looks like that other engine will be getting some attention now.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Yep. Unfortunately, start prepping the other engine.

 

[Justin B]

I appreciate everyone's feedback that helped me so far. I'm getting the 6.9 cleaned up and accessories prepped. I ordered a new gasket kit and want to open her up for a visual inspection prior to doing all the swap work.

My questions that I have right now is about injectors and injection pump. Suppliers offer different ones for the 6.9 and the 7.3, and even years of the 7.3 varies. I had originally planned to rebuild the 6.9; however, if everything looks good, I'm just going to install it then go through the 7.3 to keep as my spare or potentially rebuild it as time permits.

Are the injectors and IP interchangeable? Is there an adjustment that I can perform without having to send the pump back in if I choose to go this route? Also, there's so many choices for parts out there, what's the difference between stock injectors and modified ones?

My setup will be stock internals, studs on the 6.9, Banks turbo with EGT installed. I'm not chasing big power numbers, just a reliable everyday driver with occasional towing. Could I get by with stock injectors?

 

[Thewespaul]

Stock injectors are more than fine, the only real difference now days for the 6.9 and 7.3 fuel systems is some differences with the fuel lines, but not a big deal at all. The stock pump will have plenty of adjustment to be able to make the power you need

 

[Justin B]

So I'm still here. Between a one year old and work keeping me busy I haven't had much time to dedicate to the engine swap. I'm in the garage now and have the head pulled for studs. I started taking measurements to see where I was at engine health wise and was getting right around 4.02", give or take a few thousandth's (using snap gauges and micrometer at the moment). The guy I bought the 6.9 from said it was a 100-something-k motor, but of course it was bought from him after he bought from someone else. The piston has .020 stamped on the crown, am I right in assuming this motor has been bored over .020"? I'm fine with that as long as the cylinders check out.. they've all looked good so far with nice cross hatching and smooth clean bores.

 

[Macrobb]

So I'm still here. Between a one year old and work keeping me busy I haven't had much time to dedicate to the engine swap. I'm in the garage now and have the head pulled for studs. I started taking measurements to see where I was at engine health wise and was getting right around 4.02", give or take a few thousandth's (using snap gauges and micrometer at the moment). The guy I bought the 6.9 from said it was a 100-something-k motor, but of course it was bought from him after he bought from someone else. The piston has .020 stamped on the crown, am I right in assuming this motor has been bored over .020"? I'm fine with that as long as the cylinders check out.. they've all looked good so far with nice cross hatching and smooth clean bores.

Considering you can often get away with boring a 7.3 .030" over, a 6.9 can handle a lot more than .020 over just fine.
Heck, I've currently got a 7.3 that was bored .020" over back in '01(according to the paint markings inside) and it didn't appear to have any cavitation issues or anything...

As for the heads, if the guides are bad I'd look into having new guides put in. They make new cast-iron guides that are like 3/8 or 1/2" OD that can be pressed in, which will give you a new guide surface.

In my mind, also, the problem with guide wear is inadequate lubrication. Make sure the exhaust guide seals are shields and not seals like the intake - you need to make sure a little oil passes it by.
If you are going to be running a turbo, well, I wouldn't even bother with shields - you've got pressure pushing /up/ the guides on both intake and exhaust, and in my experience it doesn't seem to need them.

 

[Justin B]

@Thewespaul moving this over here so I dont steal IDIBRONCO's thread. They look like 7.3 rockers, casting numbers off the side I'm working on is 1809215C3, not enough time to look it up tonight, but I'll check it out tomorrow.

I punched those plugs out, the block is provisioned for it so I figured why not.

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[Thewespaul]

Yep those are 7.3 rockers and definitely 7.3 heads like jeremy pointed out

 

[Justin B]

Are these safe to run on a 6.9? I'm sure there's info on the forum about this.. pro's/cons? Ok with the larger diameter holes for the big bolts?

 

[Justin B]

So, now I'm thinking they are definitely 6.9 heads.. casting number "215" somewhat confirms that (if you believe what you read on the internet), as well as the head bolts were 7/16" stock bolts with no machining of bosses or anything special on the head. There also wasn't noticeable slop around the studs when I dropped the head down. I'll try to fit a 1/2" bolt in the other side, but I'm pretty confident it's not going to go. Was there a point in model years where they started using 7.3 parts on 6.9 heads or casting differently? @IDIBRONCO do you have a picture of the difference in cooling passages?

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Not at the moment. If they are 7.3 heads, you wouldn't have any issues by running them as long as they are torqued down to specs. The head dowels will keep them from moving around. Your 7/16" stock head bolts just mean that your block is a 6.9. You can't use 1/2" bolts with a 6.9 without enlarging the holes in the block. I could be wrong and these are actually later (86? 87?) 6.9 heads, but I can't see why they would have changed the coolant passages in the heads until they made the same changes in the blocks. If I can remember right (and I could be wrong on this too), you can look at the boss of the head bolts themselves to tell the difference. I think that the "lower" row of bolts (the row that's entirely outside the valve covers) sit closer to the mating surface (bottom) of the head than the other two rows do. On the 7.3 heads, they are all the same distance from the mating surface. I'll still claim years and a fuzzy memory on this one.